This paper and the following five papers were presented at the NAV90 Conference on Land Navigation and Information Systems. The Conference was organized by the Institute in September at the University of Warwick. Complete sets of the proceedings are available from the Director, Royal Institute of Navigation, price £60 (to RIN members).

This paper takes a global overview of technical developments in vehicular navigation. From this vantage point, the author gives his perception of some of the critical issues involved in the major shakeout and consolidation which he expects to occur during the next one or two decades, and he speculates on the outcome.